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Dessert

English Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with raisins, currants, suet, bread crumbs, sugar, flour, nutmeg, candied orange peel, eggs, brandy, and lemon rind.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

English Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Combine raisins, currants, suet, bread crumbs, brown sugar, flour, nutmeg, and candied orange peel in a bowl.

  2. In another bowl, beat the eggs and mix in the brandy.

  3. Pour the egg mixture into the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly.

  4. Pack the mixture into well-greased basins or molds.

Boil and serve

  1. Boil for 6 hours at the time of making.

  2. Boil again for 6 hours when ready to serve.

  3. Serve with hard sauce or brandy sauce.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  3. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and help give the pudding its set structure.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Stale bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the pudding body and a soft crumb.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a molasses note that deepens the flavor.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavor while helping the pudding keep well.

The step that matters

Packing and sealing the basins. The mixture must be packed firmly into greased basins with no large air gaps, so the pudding cooks evenly and holds its shape during the long boil. Loose packing can let water seep in and make the texture soggy.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, bread, sugar, flour, nutmeg, egg, brandy):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Datesfits about as well
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, bread, sugar, flour, nutmeg, egg, brandy. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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